182 THE HEV. CANON JAMES 0. HAXNAY. M.A.. OX 



It looked, just at first, as if there were going to be some kind 

 of religious revival. We heard of churches at home filled, day 

 after day. with people who came to pray. We were told stories 

 about men in companies and battalions kneeling to receive the 

 sacrament before going into action. But the emotion wore thin. 

 The e5ort to revive it by means of a National ^Mission of Repent- 

 ance and Hope was not an entire success. Either the thing 

 was mismanaged or the nation was in no mood -for response. 

 He would be a bold man who claimed that there has been any- 

 thing like a general religious revival either in the Anny or at home. 

 The war has not shown that the nation was in any complete sense 

 christianized. Out of the deep men have cried. That is true, 

 though the cry has been singularly inarticulate and it can scarcely 

 be said that they have cried consciously and deliberately to the 

 Lord. 



On the other hand, there has been nothing like the wave of 

 definite unbelief which would have followed a general acceptance 

 of the rationalist argument. It is only one, here and there, who, 

 like the second officer in the stoiy, has been convinced by the 

 war that there is no G-od. Men stiU pray, and stiU in a vague 

 way ex]^3ect that Someone hears their prayers. The Christianity 

 of the nation has proved to be something more than a mere 

 veneer. It has not peeled off when submitted to the scorching 

 blast of sorrow and trouble. There remains a feeling that 

 Christianity, in spite of the passing of so many centuries, 

 has not had a fair trial, and may yet be able to fulfil its promise 

 to the world. 



What does seem to have happened is something which no one 

 expected and very few people wanted. The original pre-war 

 attitude of the average man towards religion seems to have been 

 something like this : — 



"Religion! That's the parson's job. He's paid for it. He 

 has his church. I expect it's all right, and he's seeing after 

 it. Anyhow, I'm not rehgious, and there's no need for me to 

 bother myseK.'' 



There was little or no active hostility there, though there was 

 a suggestion of contempt. There was certainly no definite 

 apprehension of intellectual difficulties, no approach to a reasoned 

 scepticism. The ordinary man simply stood remote from the 

 Church, neither blessing much nor cursing much ; very patient, 

 very tolerant, broadly indifferent. Xow there is a change. 

 Religion is still the parson's job, or the padre's, according to 



